Site slow due to Events Calendar

[Timothy Lindsay]

We’ve been experiencing site speed issues and have done a lot of investigating as to the causes. It turns out it’s due to events calendar. When disabled the server response time is 1.5 seconds. When activated the server response time is 5.7 seconds. We have plenty of power on the server. It’s a VPS 8 core with 8GB RAM and the speed problems are only with Events Calendar activated.

We do have a lot of events however – 4000 roughly. Could the number of events be the problem, or would you not expect this behaviour? I’ve seen other comments about MySQL max_join_size value being one possible area to look at, but I’m not sure when to find this value?

Could you please offer some advice to help us troubleshoot the problem. We like working with EC and have invested a lot of time in it. We’d rather not have to find another calendar solution but the site speed is seriously compromised at the moment which is impacting on our users and bounce rate. Appreciate any support you can offer. thank you

[George]

Hey @Nucreative,

Thanks for reaching out. While there are undoubtedly things in our plugin that can be improved performance-wise (and which we are constantly refining and improving!), the fundamental limitation here is the sheer volume of events you have.

There is unfortunately not a whole lot that can be done from our end on this at this time—you could reduce the number of events on your site, or reach out to your web host provider for some other insight on this matter / possible increasing of resources to your server.

I’m sorry to disappoint! Please let me know what other thoughts you have on this.

Sincerely,
George

[Timothy Lindsay]

I’m quite surprised that your response is that we have too many events, as I’ve been following other threads where EC staff have said they have seen sites with over 10,000 events working just fine. On further investigation we have found that the issue lies with the Events Calendar widgets, and in particular the on that displays the month view calendar. We have this running on the homepage and with it active, the sever response time is 5.7 seconds. When we remove the widget it improves to under 2 seconds.So there seems to be an issue with your widgets and in particular the calendar view? I’ve seen threads going back 2-3 years with the same issues, so is it correct that you’ve still not got on top of this issue? Do you have any advice as to how to trouble shoot this problem? Is it an issue with an SQL query? Any further help you can offer would be very much appreciated before we have to give up on Events Calendar. thanks

[George]

Hey @nucreative,

Thanks for your follow-up here. Before touching on something you wrote about the widgets which is interesting, I would like to address your citing of other past issues and threads, some of them two or three years old as you’ve mentioned.

This is not a useful or meaningful thing to do here because every single website is very different, and so yes, some beefed up servers with optimized code and caching and all sorts of custom things might handle dozens of thousands of events better than yours. There are myriad reasons why this could be the case, and so every single performance issue is a case-by-case issue.

As for us not being on top of it, we’ve introduced many improvements for performance over the years. But like I said, each site is different, and our plugin is just one piece of code on a site with themes, other plugins, WordPress itself, and all of the other server code, so there are many many factors here.

Just wanted to elaborate on that! We’re happy to try and help here and take this seriously, and constantly try to improve performance. 🙂 Occasional instances of bad performance do not negate these efforts.

---

Speaking of those efforts, you mention this which is something I’m quite surprised by:

When we remove the widget it improves to under 2 seconds.So there seems to be an issue with your widgets and in particular the calendar view?

I’ve never seen this behavior and cannot recreate it, so I will be trying to rope in a developer to assist me in investigating this behavior more closely.

---

Finally, you posted a truncated version of your site’s “System Information.” It only lists these plugins:


vaultpress version 1.8.1 by automattic(http://vaultpress.com/?utm_source=author-uri&utm_medium=plugin-description&utm_campaign=1.0)
adrotate version 3.15.3 by arnan de gans(http://ajdg.solutions/?pk_campaign=adrotatefree-pluginpage)
advanced post manager version 4.1.1 by modern tribe, inc.(http://m.tri.be/4n)
auto approve comments for specific posts version 1.0.1 by ioni(http://albastru.eu)


And then the block of information stops.

Can you please post the full, un-edited System Information of your website here to help us investigate? Here’s how → https://theeventscalendar.com/knowledgebase/sharing-sys-info/

Thank you!
George

[Timothy Lindsay]

Thank you we do very much appreciate the help and appreciate every case is different. I’m sure it’s very challenging to keep on top of the endless number of possible site configurations with WordPress for sure!

A couple of things to add since my last post. We have edited the Widget to remove the calendar function completely, so it only shows the list or events. This has helped a lot. Instead of slowing things down to 5.7 seconds it’s not around 3 seconds. Not ideal still but better.

Here is the full site information for you (just to confirm we have tested for compatibilities issues but even if TEC is the only plugin running, the speed issues still materialise as soon as the widget is used on the page.

Home

SITE URL

Home

INSTALL KEYS
events-calendar-pro = e22d43e6f984ed1878df4eef6372097660d826a4
events-community = 11afc4fe2ad8a0f74819eb31de4109a95f9d3e4e
tribe-filterbar = 8530d5ff1ee28771543820984804d586ffe9792a
WORDPRESS VERSION
4.5.1
PHP VERSION
5.5.32
PLUGINS
VaultPress version 1.8.1 by Automattic(http://vaultpress.com/?utm_source=author-uri&utm_medium=plugin-description&utm_campaign=1.0)
Advanced Post Manager version 4.1.1 by Modern Tribe, Inc.(http://m.tri.be/4n)
Auto approve comments for specific posts version 1.0.1 by Ioni(http://albastru.eu)
Business Directory Plugin – Enhanced Categories Module version 3.6.1 by D. Rodenbaugh(http://businessdirectoryplugin.com)
Business Directory Plugin – Claim Listings Module version 1.0.5 by D. Rodenbaugh(http://businessdirectoryplugin.com)
Business Directory Plugin – Featured Levels Module version 3.6.6 by D. Rodenbaugh(http://www.skylineconsult.com)
Business Directory Plugin – Google Maps Module version 4.0 by D. Rodenbaugh(http://businessdirectoryplugin.com)
Business Directory Plugin version 3.7.5 by D. Rodenbaugh(http://businessdirectoryplugin.com)
Business Directory Plugin – Ratings Module version 3.6.2 by D. Rodenbaugh(http://www.skylineconsult.com)
Business Directory Plugin – ZIP Search Module version 3.6.5 by D. Rodenbaugh(http://businessdirectoryplugin.com)
Anti-Spam by CleanTalk version 5.40.1 by СleanTalk (http://cleantalk.org)
The Events Calendar PRO version 4.1.2 by Modern Tribe, Inc.(http://m.tri.be/20)
Favicon by RealFaviconGenerator version 1.3.4 by Philippe Bernard(http://realfavicongenerator.net/)
Favorites version 1.2.3 by Kyle Phillips(https://github.com/kylephillips)
Jetpack by WordPress.com version 4.0.2 by Automattic(http://jetpack.com)
WPBakery Visual Composer version 4.11.2 by Michael M – WPBakery.com(http://wpbakery.com)
MyMail – Email Newsletter Plugin for WordPress version 2.1.11 by revaxarts.com(https://revaxarts.com)
MyMail SendGrid Integration version 0.4.5 by revaxarts.com(http://revaxarts.com)
Pageflip5 version 1.4 by Abel Vincze(http://iparigrafika.hu)
Recipe Card version 1.1.7 by Yumprint(http://yumprint.com)
tagDiv Social Counter version 3.1 by tagDiv(http://tagdiv.com)
tagDiv Speed Booster version 4.2 by tagDiv(http://tagdiv.com)
The Events Calendar: Community Events version 4.1.1 by Modern Tribe, Inc.(http://m.tri.be/21)
The Events Calendar: Filter Bar version 4.1 by Modern Tribe, Inc.(http://m.tri.be/25)
The Events Calendar version 4.1.2 by Modern Tribe, Inc.(http://m.tri.be/1x)
Thumbs Rating version 3.0 by Ricard Torres(http://php.quicoto.com/)
Ultimate Member version 1.3.50 by Ultimate Member(http://ultimatemember.com/)
Ultimate Member – Social Login version 1.4.3 by Ultimate Member(http://ultimatemember.com/)
Ultimate Member – WooCommerce version 1.0.9 by Ultimate Member(http://ultimatemember.com/)
Advance Flat Rate Shipping Method For WooCommerce version 1.1.3 by Multidots(http://www.multidots.com/)
WooCommerce version 2.5.5 by WooThemes(http://woothemes.com)
Wordfence Security version 6.1.4 by Wordfence(http://www.wordfence.com/)
Yoast SEO version 3.2.3 by Team Yoast(https://yoast.com/)
WP Crontrol version 1.3 by John Blackbourn & Edward Dale
wpMandrill version 1.33 by Mandrill(http://mandrillapp.com/)
NETWORK PLUGINS
–
MU PLUGINS
–
THEME
Mummys Gin Fund CHILD
MULTISITE
–
SETTINGS
tribeEnableViews = Array
(
[0] => list
[1] => month
[2] => day
[3] => map
)
schema-version = 4.1.2
recurring_events_are_hidden = exposed
previous_ecp_versions = Array
(
[0] => 0
[1] => 3.10.1
[2] => 3.12.3
[3] => 3.12.5
[4] => 3.12.6
[5] => 4.0
[6] => 4.0.5
[7] => 4.0.7
[8] => 4.1
[9] => 4.1.1
[10] => 4.1.1.1
)
latest_ecp_version = 4.1.2
last-update-message = 4.1.2
stylesheetOption = full
tribeEventsTemplate =
viewOption = day
tribeDisableTribeBar = 1
monthEventAmount = 3
enable_month_view_cache = 1
dateWithYearFormat = D jS
dateWithoutYearFormat = D jS
monthAndYearFormat = D jS
dateTimeSeparator = @
timeRangeSeparator = –
datepickerFormat = 3
tribeEventsBeforeHTML =
tribeEventsAfterHTML =
earliest_date = 2015-01-17 17:15:00
latest_date = 2017-10-10 16:00:00
disable_metabox_custom_fields = hide
pro-schema-version = 4.1.2
hideLocationSearch =
hideRelatedEvents =
week_view_hide_weekends =
weekDayFormat = D jS
donate-link =
postsPerPage = 10
liveFiltersUpdate =
hideSubsequentRecurrencesDefault = 1
userToggleSubsequentRecurrences =
recurrenceMaxMonthsBefore = 1
recurrenceMaxMonthsAfter = 1
showComments =
showEventsInMainLoop =
multiDayCutoff = 00:00
defaultCurrencySymbol = £
reverseCurrencyPosition =
embedGoogleMaps = 1
geoloc_default_geofence = 25
geoloc_default_unit = miles
embedGoogleMapsZoom = 15
debugEvents =
custom-fields = Array
(
[8] => Array
(
[name] => _ecp_custom_8
[label] => Age Groups
[type] => checkbox
[values] => Baby
Toddler
Older Child
Adult
)
)

custom-fields-max-index = 13
events_filters_layout = horizontal
events_filters_default_state = open
eventsSlug = events
singleEventSlug = event
earliest_date_markers = Array
(
[0] => 7142
)
latest_date_markers = Array
(
[0] => 5297
)
WORDPRESS TIMEZONE
Europe/London
SERVER TIMEZONE
UTC
COMMON LIBRARY DIR
/home/mummysginfund/public_html/wp-content/plugins/the-events-calendar/common/src/Tribe
COMMON LIBRARY VERSION
4.1

[George]

Thank you for all of this information! I’m happy shared it and do genuinely want to help here—I wanted to be frank and honest earlier about how little me might be able to do, but it’s still worth looking and investigating.

Your system information shows that your plugins are all up-to-date—nice. Nothing else stands out as outright problematic, either.

What you said here was interesting, and very useful:

just to confirm we have tested for compatibilities issues but even if TEC is the only plugin running, the speed issues still materialise as soon as the widget is used on the page

I’m surprised to see our widget having such an impact, and don’t see it doing so on my own local site, but will take a closer look and rope in some developer assistance on this to see if we can identify why this might be happening.

Stay tuned!
George

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Author]

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